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Miniature radio tags to track bee behaviour

The tiny 2.5 mm radio frequency identification sensors are attached to the back of the bee and then the bees are released to the wild.

CSIRO

Miniature radio tags, akin to e-tags for cars, are being attached to the back of bees to help them survive the threat of exotic diseases.

Five thousand tags are being fitted to bees in southern Tasmania. The information they generate will be used to learn more about bee movement and behaviour.

Honey bees are vital for the pollination of numerous agricultural and horticultural crops, but their populations are being threatened by Varroa mite, Colony Collapse Disorder and other exotic bee diseases.

The sensors are like car e-tags or ID cards swiped by office workers.

CSIRO Science Leader Dr Paulo de Souza has been instrumental in developing the tiny radio frequency identification sensor.

He says the technology works because bees are social animals.

"Because the communication range we have today is pretty short, we can read the data about 30 centimetres away.

"So if we have an insect that passes a specific place that we can read the data, that will help us a lot.

"We have them in hives, in feeder stations, we can install readers in places where the bee will be.

"Being social, we would expect the bee to go to that place to get the food and come back home.

"When they come back home, we can read the data from the bees," he said.

Beekeeper Peter Norris is hopeful the technology can be used to eradicate the exotic Asian Honey Bee, found in Queensland.

"It's fantastic for our industry, particularly if we can get to the point where we can take GPS readings.

"It would be a real breakthrough from a pollination point of view for working out pollination densities.

"But probably one of the major things I'd like to see it used for is eradicating Apis cerana, which was an incursion in Cairns in 2007.

"Unfortunately it wasn't eradicated and it's now moved to a management situation.

"But with this chip, if we could trap Apis cerana at feeding stations, we could get GPS readings of where the nests are. We would be in a position to eradicate it."

Dr de Souza says that, in the future, even smaller radio transmitters could be used to study Queensland fruit fly, mosquitoes and sandflies.

"Probably by the end of the year we are going to have one-millimetre sensors, square," he said.

"That is something we have designed, we know how to get there.

"But in five years' time, we would like to get to the size of pollen, so the bee can take that as a pollen and carry it without much effort."